The MÆDEN Simulator

The MÆDEN simulator provides a testbed
for studying problem solving in either a single or a multi-agent context.
Both humans and artificial intelligence agents may interact with objects in the environment
and with each other
as they attempt to solve problems of varying difficulty.
This Java-based simulator interacts asynchronously with
multiple agent controllers written in any language
using the standard socket layer.
Agents may cooperate to solve problems
or they may fight each other over limited resources.
The testbed
supports a simple visual sense of an agent's immediate surroundings,
an olfactory sense indicating the direction of the food supply,
an auditory perception of messages sent by other agents,
and several other simple sensory features.
Similarly, MÆDEN provides effector capabilities to move about the
environment, manipulate tools and objects, attack other agents, and broadcast messages.

In terms of environment characteristics,
MÆDEN is:

partially observable: agents do not have direct access to the entire world

stochastic: actions do not always have the same effect (but may be set to deterministic)

dynamic: the world may change apart from an agent's own actions

asynchronous multi-agent: multiple agents interact with the world and each other asynchronously

discrete: objects exist within a grid and agents move from one cell to orthogonally adjacent cells